Malgoire successor is named
mainSeventeen months after the death of baroque pioneer Jean-Claude Malgoire , his successor has been appointed from the mainstream.
The new artistic and general director of the Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing, founded by Malgoire, will be the exceptionally busy François-Xavier Roth, presently Generalmusikdirektor of the city of Cologne and principal guest at the London Symphony Orchestra.
French Baroque just went broke.
Went broke? Things have rarely looked better for French baroque – with Minkowski, Christie, and Niquet all fighting for a share of a crowded market, not to mention the performances of Rameau, Lully & Co we get from non-French practitioners like Savall.
Don’t forget the magnificent Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée!
And don´t forget Raphaël Pichon, Cristoph Rousset, Vinceny Dumestre, Hugo Reyne and Sebastian Daucé.
Sorry Christoph Rousset, Vincent Dumestre.
You are right Ed, and we shall see all these wonderful ensembles in Tourcoing soon !
“magnificent Emmanuelle Haïm ” ?Really? .. her conducting is pedestrian … she confuses “period” with “dead slow” Painful to listen to. I attended a good number of her concerts in both London and France when she was the zeitgeist female conductor and truly found her work boring and uninspiring. I understand we all have different taste and expectations but “magnificent” and “Emmanuelle Haïm ” do not belong in the same sentence for me.
Congratulations!
From all I have heard, FXR is a highly respected and competent conductor.
“French Baroque just went broke” is a bit rich, surely?
After all, this is a French born and educated conductor, with an impressive track record.
He even founded his own period band Les Siecles in 2003.
What is the problem with also being an accomplished “mainstream” conductor?
Ton Koopman, John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Philippe Herreweghe, Reinhard Goebel et al. work(ed) with modern “mainstream” symphony orchestras.
Why not welcome diversity, exchange of ideas and mutual inspiration?
Why not judge by listening to actual music instead of categorising and labelling artists?
Agreed, FXR is an excellent & versatile musician across the board: no problem with Baroque for him.
France is not short of specialist baroque ensembles.
FXR is wonderful to work with. Many congratulations.
“French Baroque just went broke.”
Quelle grossière exagération !
Ce n’est même pas d’exagération, c’est carrément de la sottise.
Absolutement!
Is there some other evidence that FXR is planning on changing the ALT to a more ‘mainstream’ ensemble? Am not in a position to set everything else aside and go searching through the French media for the past six months, if there is.
ALT is not even an ensemble; it’s a venue, whose programming has always been quite diverse (both in terms of the ensembles they invite to play and the repertoire they explore)
Mr Lebrecht’s post is misleading at best.
I prefer baroque music with down-beats played on a down-bow. There are still a few of us that revere the genius of Francois Tourte, par example cellist Alban Gerhardt.